Yoga: Sacred and Profane

The dilemma we all face is the dilemma that stood in vast array before Arjuna of the Bhagavad Gita. The young warrior of noble birth, strong of arm and wise beyond his years, sat before the great field of battle and doubted.

Doubted.

He doubted whether it was to any good purpose to continue, whether it made any human sense to kill those who came to fight against his army. Many of them were kin. How could he bring himself to kill them? What if he won? What would be gained? What if he lost? But Krishna urged him on by saying that effectively speaking he had no choice.

But Arjuna was a young man with all of his life before him. Not to fight would in effect be suicidal, psychologically speaking, as he would lose face with his fellows, and worse. So he really had no choice.

In a larger sense none of us have any choice. We too must fight. The enemy is delusion and doubt. It is lack of confidence in ourselves and our will to power that holds us back. We slay not, neither do we die, says Krishna.

But let's put aside the Bhagavad Gita for the time being. Instead consider this little ditty:

I went to the animal fair,
The birds and the bees were there;
The big baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair.

Which might well be:

The world's a vanity fair,
With bangles and beads to snare;
Where we sing the tune to break the gloom
While combing our auburn hair.

Howard Bloom wants his book to be a success, a big success. It's a big book with a big subject. He put his heart and soul into the book and he knows that if the book is to be a success he has to put his heart and soul into marketing it. He is counting the days down and sharing with his friends the experience. He is going to appear on radio and TV. It's doubtful that he can interest Oprah, but perhaps NPR will schedule him, maybe he can go on Bill O'Reilly. He will go on tour and give talks and sign copies of his book. He will see the adoring eyes upon him and hear the cheers.

Howard Bloom, as I have said, is a brilliant man. He has great energy and is a formidable scholar who understands the human predicament as a Solomon might.

I haven't read the book yet, but I will as I have read three of his other books, one in digital manuscript.

He is reinventing capitalism, and we all know how desperately capitalism needs reinventing. Naysayers are suggesting darkly that capitalism is a ponzi scheme on the future. They see the pollution and the exploitation. They see the giant international corporations as psychopathic entities who “externalize” costs by dumping their excreta into our oceans and waterways and into the atmosphere. They see how the corporations with their profits buy up the politicians so that their bidding might be done. They see how the corporations buy advertising and pundits in the media to better manipulate the mass mind so that we might continue to blindly acquiesce in their rape of the planet.

Well, no, Howard Bloom won't be saying anything like this. He will present solutions to these problems or show how these problems are illusory. He is reinventing capitalism. And I wish him well.

But I too have written a book. It is called Yoga: Sacred and Profane. Its theme is that the yoga that has come down to us is not the complete yoga, that yoga is more than artful exercise, that yoga is a great psychology, a “religion” if you will that confronts the dilemma of life head on and like Buddhism presents a way to what in Christianity is called “salvation” or “the peace that passeth understanding,” and what in Zen is called “satori.” I have spent thirty-five years writing it and living it. I have read hundreds of books and spent thousands of hours in practice.

Yoga: Sacred and Profane leads to an understanding of yoga that both a rationalist and a spiritualist would appreciate.

I would like Yoga: Sacred and Profane to reach a large audience, but I am a writer not a publicist. I am a yogin not a media maven. I need a publisher, an editor, and a publicist. Perhaps I will get them.

At any rate for now I will “publish” Yoga: Sacred and Profane in another Google blog of that name and elsewhere and hope that my efforts at marketing will be successful. Why? Because Yoga: Sacred and Profane is great work. I say this without any false modesty or false immodesty. I say it because I have studied not just yoga but all the great religions of the world and have lived the life of a jnana yogin for many years. I know a truth deeper than my skin. What I know is the way to samadhi, and I can show it to you.

--Dennis Littrell